Hurricane Sandy, the Election, and Peripatetic Polling Places

In a rare bit of overlapping Hurricane Sandy/presidential election news that is not merely mindless pontificating, The Wall Street Journalreports that meteorological hero and New Jersey governor Chris Christie is concerned about the functionality of New Jersey polling stations on Tuesday. Christie told reporters: “We’ll be ready for election day one way or the other, and people will have the opportunity to vote in the election, but we’re just going to have to see where we are.” Polling places might have to be moved around—which is upsetting considering the second-to-last thing Jersey residents need right now is instability. (The last thing they need right now is a “storm relief event” organized by Mitt Romney, in which the multimillionaire presidential candidate collected canned goods and announced his intention to ship them to “I think it’s New Jersey.”)

Luckily (“luckily”?) New Jersey is not a state that has any electoral significance. Imagine if tornadoes were to strike Ohio! Or an earthquake were to rattle, let’s say, Michigan! Or poor minority voters managed to un-disenfranchise themselves in Pennsylvania! The powers that be simply would not stand for such process disruptions.